Many people regularly use transit systems to commute to work and/or to travel for a variety of purposes. In an effort to improve the convenience of transit travel, many transit operators now offer riders the option of paying for trips through using fare media cards with embedded proprietary contactless payment applications.
While such fare media cards are convenient for regular riders, the cards present several problems for out-of-town visitors. For example, out-of-town visitors often must spend significant time, effort, and money simply learning how to purchase fare media cards. Out-of-town visitors are also frequently deterred from using fare media cards because many transit operators require each card to be preloaded with a minimum amount. Illustratively, a transit operator may require a rider to prepay fifteen dollars before issuing a fare media card. If, however, an out-of-town visitor only requires five dollars worth of trips, he or she may choose not to purchase a fare media card, and may therefore not use the associated transit system.
What is needed is a system that can remove barriers to transit use for out-of-town visitors. It would further be desirable to make paying for transit fare more convenient by consolidating transit and non-transit charges onto a single folio or bill. Embodiments of the present invention address these problems and other problems individually and collectively.